Djong (ship)


The djong, jong, or jung is a type of ancient sailing ship originating from Java that was widely used by Javanese and Malay sailors. The word was and is spelled jong in its languages of origin, the "djong" spelling being the colonial Dutch romanisation.
Djongs are used mainly as seagoing passenger and cargo vessels. They traveled as far as Ghana or even Brazil in ancient times. The average burthen was 400-500 deadweight tons, with a range of 85-2000 tons. In the Majapahit era these vessels were used as warships, but still predominantly as transport vessels.

Etymology

Views diverge on whether the origin of the word is from a dialect of Chinese, or from a Javanese word. The word jong, jung or junk may derives from the Chinese word for boat, originally pronounced :wiktionary:船#Pronunciation|ɦljon in Old Chinese. However, Paul Pelliot and Waruno Mahdi rejects the Chinese origin for the name. The word jong can be found in a number of ancient Javanese inscriptions dating to the 9th century. It was first recorded in the Malay and Chinese language by the 15th century, when a Chinese word list identified it as a Malay term for ship, thus practically excludes the Chinese origin of the word. The late 15th century Malay Maritime Laws uses jong frequently as the word for freight ships. European writings from 1345 through 1601 use a variety of related terms, including jonque, ioncque, iuncque, joanga, juanga, and ionco, djonk, jonk.
The origin of the word "junk" in English language, can be traced to Potuguese word junco, which is rendered from Arabic word j-n-k. This word comes from the fact that Arabic script cannot represent the digraph "ng". The word used to denote both Javanese/Malay ship and Chinese ship, eventhough the two were markedly different vessel. After the [|disappearance of jong] in the 17th century, the meaning of "junk", which until then was used as a transcription of the word "jong" in Malay and Javanese, changed its meaning to exclusively Chinese ship only.
People from the Nusantara archipelago usually refer to large Chinese ships as "wangkang", while small ones are called "top". There are also terms in the Malay language, "cunea", "cunia", and "cunya" that originates from the Amoy Chinese dialect 船 仔, which refers to Chinese vessels 10-20 m in length. The "djong" spelling is of colonial Dutch origin, rendering the j sound as "dj", though both traditional British and current Indonesian orthography romanises it as jong.

Sailor and navigation

The Nusantara archipelago was known for production of large junks. When Portuguese sailors reached the waters of Southeast Asia in the early 1500s they found this area dominated by Javanese junk ships. This Javanese trading ship controlled the vital spice route, between Moluccas, Java and Malacca. The port city of Malacca at that time practically became a Javanese city. There were many Javanese merchants and ship captains who settled and at the same time controlled international trade. Many skilled Javanese carpenters are building ships in the dockyards of the largest port city in Southeast Asia.
For seafaring, the Malay people independently invented junk sails, made from woven mats reinforced with bamboo, at least several hundred years before 1 BC. By the time of the Han dynasty the Chinese were using such sails, having learned it from Malay sailors visiting their Southern coast. Beside this type of sail, they also made balance lugsails. The invention of these types of sail made sailing around the western coast of Africa possible, because of their ability to sail against the wind.
During the Majapahit era, almost all of the commodities from Asia were found in Java. This is because of extensive shipping by the Majapahit empire using various type of ships, particularly the jong, for trading to faraway places. Ma Huan who visited Java in 1413, stated that ports in Java were trading goods and offer services that were more numerous and more complete than other ports in Southeast Asia. It was also during Majapahit era that Nusantaran exploration reached its greatest accomplishment. Ludovico di Varthema, in his book Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese stated that the Southern Javanese people sailed to "far Southern lands" up to the point they arrived at an island where a day only lasted four hours long and was "colder than in any part of the world". Modern studies have determined that such place is located at least 900 nautical miles south of the southernmost point of Tasmania.
The Javanese and Malay people, like other Austronesian ethnicities, use a solid navigation system: Orientation at sea is carried out using a variety of different natural signs, and by using a very distinctive astronomy technique called "star path navigation". Basically, the navigators determine the bow of the ship to the islands that are recognized by using the position of rising and setting of certain stars above the horizon. In the Majapahit era, compasses and magnets were used, and cartography was developed: The use of maps full of longitudinal and transverse lines, rhumb lines, and direct route lines traveled by ships were recorded by Europeans, to the point that the Portuguese considered the Javanese maps were the best map in the early 1500s.
When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, the Portuguese recovered a chart from a Javanese pilot, which already included part of the Americas. Regarding the chart Albuquerque said:
"...a large map of a Javanese pilot, containing the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal and the land of Brazil, the Red Sea and the Sea of Persia, the Clove Islands, the navigation of the Chinese and the Gom, with their rhumbs and direct routes followed by the ships, and the hinterland, and how the kingdoms border on each other. It seems to me. Sir, that this was the best thing I have ever seen, and Your Highness will be very pleased to see it; it had the names in Javanese writing, but I had with me a Javanese who could read and write. I send this piece to Your Highness, which Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from, and the course your ships must take to the Clove Islands, and where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda, of actions of the period, than any of his contemporaries; and it appears highly probable, that what he has related is substantially true: but there is also reason to believe that he composed his work from recollection, after his return to Europe, and he may not have been scrupulous in supplying from a fertile imagination the unavoidable failures of a memory, however richly stored." - Letter of Albuquerque to King Manuel I of Portugal, April 1512.
A Portuguese account described how the Javanese people already had advanced seafaring skills when they arrived:

Description

Duarte Barbosa reported that the ships from Java, which have four masts, are very different from Portuguese ships. A Javanese ship is made of very thick wood, and as it gets old, the Javanese fix it with new planks, this way they have 3-4 planks, one above other. The rope and the sail is made with woven rattan. The Javanese junks were made using jaty/jati wood at the time of his report, at that time Chinese junks were still using softwood as their main material. The Javanese ship's hull is formed by joining planks to the keel and then to each other by wooden dowels, without using either a frame, nor any iron bolts or nails. The planks are perforated by an auger and inserted with dowels, which remains inside the fastened planks, not seen from the outside. On some of the smaller vessels parts may be lashed together with vegetable fibers. The vessel was similarly pointed at both ends, and carried two oar-like rudders and lateen-rigged sails, but it may also use junk sail, a sail of Malay origin. It differed markedly from the Chinese vessel, which had its hull fastened by strakes and iron nails to a frame and to structurally essential bulkheads which divided the cargo space. The Chinese vessel had a single rudder on a transom stern, and they had flat bottoms without keels.
, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, claimed to be from 14th century Majapahit. Examine the Surya Majapahit emblem on the bronze cannon.
Historical engravings also depict usage of bowsprits and bowsprit sails, with deckhouse above the upper deck, and the appearance of stemposts and sternposts. The deckhouse is extending from the front to the back, where people are protected from the heat of the sun, rain, and dew. At the stern there is a cabin for the ship's captain. This cabin, is square in shape and protruding above the sharp waterline stern. The bow also has square platform that protrude above the stempost, for bowsprit and forward facing gun shield/gun mount. A jong could carry up to 100 berço. According to father Nicolau Pereira, the jong has 3 rudders, one on each side and one in the middle. Pereira's account is unusual, however, because other accounts only mention 2 quarter rudders. This may refer to hybrid jong, with middle rudder being like those on Chinese vessels or western axial rudder. A jong has about 1:3 to 1:4 beam to length ratio, which makes it fell to the category of "round ship".
Barbosa also reported various goods carried by these ships, which include rice, meat of cows, sheep, pigs, and deer, dried and salted, many chickens, garlic, and onions. Traded weapons include lances, dagger, and swords, worked in inlaid metal and very good steel. Also brought with them cubebs and yellow die called cazumba and gold which is produced in Java. Barbosa mention places and route in which these ships visited, which include Malacca, China, Molucca Islands, Sumatra, Tenasserim, Pegu, Bengal, Palicat, Coromandel, Malabar, Cambay, and Aden. The passenger brought their wives and children, even some of them never leave the ship to go on shore, nor have any other dwelling, for they are born and die in the ship. It is known that ships made with teak could last for 200 years.
The size and special requirements of the djong demanded access to expertise and materials not available everywhere. Consequently, the djong was mainly constructed in two major shipbuilding centres around Java: north coastal Java, especially around Rembang-Demak and Cirebon; and the south coast of Borneo and the adjacent islands. A common feature of these places was their accessibility to forests of teak, as this wood was highly valued because of its resistance to shipworm. Southern Borneo's supply of teak would have come from north Java, whereas Borneo itself would supply ironwood. Pegu, which is a large shipbuilding port at the 16th century, also produced jong, built by Javanese who resided there.

History

Greek Astronomer, Claudius Ptolemaeus, ca. AD 100, said in his work Geography that huge ships came from the east of India. This was also confirmed by an anonymous work called Periplus Marae Erythraensis. Both mention a type of ship called kolandiaphonta, which is a straightforward transcription of the Chinese word K'un-lun po - meaning "ships of Kun-lun", the Chinese name for Sumatra and/or Java.
The 3rd century book Strange Things of the South by Wan Chen describes ships capable of carrying 600-700 people together with more than 10,000 hu of cargo. These ships came from K'un-lun, meaning "Southern country" or "Islands below the wind". The ships are called K'un-lun po, could be more than 50 meters in length and had a freeboard of 5.2–7.8 meters. When seen from above they resemble covered galleries. Wan Chen explains the ships' sail design as follows:
A 260 CE book by K'ang T'ai described ships with seven sails called po for transporting horses that could travel as far as Syria. He also made reference to monsoon trade between the islands, which took a month and a few days in a large po. The word "po" is derived from the Malay word perahu, which means large ship. Note that in modern usage, perahu refers to a small boat.
Faxian in his return journey to China from India embarked a ship carrying 200 passengers and sailors from K'un-lun which towed a smaller ship. A cyclone struck and forced the passengers to move into the smaller ship. The crew of the smaller ship feared that the ship would be overloaded, therefore they cut the rope and separated from the big ship. Luckily the bigger ship survived, the passengers were stranded in Ye-po-ti. After 5 months, the crew and the passengers built a new ship comparable in size to sail back to China. In I-ch’ieh-ching yin-i, a dictionary compiled by Huei-lin ca. 817 AD, po is mentioned several times:
Ssu-ma Piao, in his commentary on Chuang Tzü, said that large ocean-going ships are called "po”. According to the Kuang Ya, po is an ocean-going ship. It has a draught of 60 feet. It is fast and carries 1000 men as well as merchandise. It is also called k’un-lun-po.
Kuang Ya was a dictionary compiled by Chang I about 230 AD, while Ssu-ma Piao lived from ca. 240 to ca. 305 AD.
In 1178, the Guangzhou customs officer Zhou Qufei, wrote in Lingwai Daida about the ships of the Southern country:
The ships which sail the southern sea and south of it are like giant houses. When their sails are spread they are like great clouds in the sky. Their rudders are several tens of feet long. A single ship carries several hundred men, and has in the stores a year's supply of grain. Pigs are fed and wine fermented on board. There is no account of dead or living, no going back to the mainland when once the people have set forth upon the cerulean sea. At daybreak, when the gong sounds aboard the ship, the animals can drink their fill, and crew and passengers alike forget all dangers. To those on board everything is hidden and lost in space, mountains, landmarks, and the countries of foreigners. The shipmaster may say "To make such and such a country, with a favourable wind, in so many days, we should sight such and such a mountain, the ship must steer in such and such a direction". But suddenly the wind may fall, and may not be strong enough to allow of the sighting of the mountain on the given day; in such a case, bearings may have to be changed. And the ship may be carried far beyond and may lose its bearings. A gale may spring up, the ship may be blown hither and thither, it may meet with shoals or be driven upon hidden rocks, then it may be broken to the very roofs. A great ship with heavy cargo has nothing to fear from the high seas, but rather in shallow water it will come to grief.
In 1322 friar Odoric of Pordenone reported that the archipelagic vessel of the zunc type carried at least 700 people, either sailors or merchants.
The Majapahit Empire used jongs as its main source of naval power. It is unknown how many exactly the total number of jong used by Majapahit, but they are grouped into 5 fleets. The largest number of jong deployed in an expedition is about 400 jongs accompanied with uncountable malangbang and kelulus, when Majapahit attacked Pasai. Each ship was about long, with burthen around 500 tons and could carry 600 men. The large ones could carry 800 men and were 50 depa long. The ships were armed with 3 meter long cannons, and numerous smaller cetbangs. Prior to the Battle of Bubat in 1357, the Sunda king and the royal family arrived in Majapahit after sailing across the Java Sea in a fleet of 200 large ships and 2000 smaller vessels. The royal family boarded a nine-decked hybrid Sino-Southeast Asian junk. This hybrid junk incorporated Chinese techniques, such as using iron nails alongside wooden dowels, the construction of watertight bulkhead, and addition of central rudder.
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Wang Dayuan's 1349 composition Daoyi Zhilüe Guangzheng Xia described the so-called "horse boats" at a place called Gan-mai-li in Southeast Asia. These ships were bigger than normal trading ships, with the sides constructed from multiple planks. The ships uses neither nails or mortar to join them, instead they are using coconut fibre. The ships has two or three decks, with deckhouse over the upper deck. In the lower hold they carried pressed-down frankincense, above them they are carrying several hundred horses. Wang made special mention of these ships because pepper, which is also transported by them, carried to faraway places with large quantity. The normal trading ships carried less than 1/10 of their cargo.
Usually, the main vessel towed behind a smaller "tender" for landing. Data from Marco Polo records made it possible to calculate that the largest ships may have had capacities of 500-800 tons, about the same as Chinese vessels used to trade in the 19th century. The tender itself may have been able to carry about 70 tons.
Niccolò da Conti, in relating his travels in Asia between 1419 and 1444, describes ships much larger than European ships, capable of reaching 2,000 tons in size, with five sails and as many masts. The lower part is constructed with three planks, to withstand the force of the tempests to which they are much exposed. The ships are built in compartments, so that if one part is punctured, the other portion remaining intact to accomplish the voyage.
Fra Mauro in his map explained that one junk rounded the Cape of Good Hope and traveled far into the Atlantic Ocean, in 1420:
The Portuguese historian João de Barros wrote that when a violent storm arose as Albuquerque's fleet entered the vast waters between Sri Lanka and Aceh, a ship commanded by Simão Martinho was sunk, but his entire crew was rescued by Fernão Pires de Andrade and taken aboard his ship. To make up for this loss, the Portuguese captured and commandeered five ships from Gujarat that were sailing between Malacca and Sumatra. The small fleet of Albuquerque engaged an enemy "junk" ship of the Malaccan "Moors" near an island between Lumut and Belawan. According to Barros, they fought against this ship for two days. The enemy crew employed tactics of setting inflammable, oleaginous matter on fire as a means of burning Albuquerque's ships and repelling boarding action, as they employed ramming techniques and close-range volleys of artillery. Although the ship surrendered, the Portuguese gained such an admiration for the junk and its crew that they nicknamed it O Bravo. The Portuguese crew pleaded with Fernão Pires to convince Albuquerque that the crew should be spared and viewed vassals of Portugal who were simply unaware of who they were actually fighting. Albuquerque eventually agreed to this.
Passing by Pacem the Portuguese came across a Djong—a junk larger and faster than their flagship, the Flor do Mar. At the time, the Portuguese currently had one squadron of 40-43 vessels. The Portuguese ordered it to halt but it promptly opened fire on the fleet, after which the Portuguese quickly followed suit. Reported by Gaspar Correia:
The Portuguese used grapple tactics for closing in to the junk, then attack in close quarter combat and set fire the junk. The junk's crew surrendered after the fire has been extinguished with great difficulty. Once aboard, the Portuguese found a member of the royal family of Pasai, whom Albuquerque hoped he could exchange for the Portuguese prisoners. The junk is about 600 tons burden, with 300 fighting men on board. It came from Java, and the crew were Javanese.
In January 1513 Paty Onuz tried to surprise Malacca with 100 vessels with 5,000 Javanese from Jepara and Palembang. About 30 of those were junks weighing about 350-600 tons, the rest being smaller boats of pangajava, lancaran, and kelulus types. The junks themselves carried 12,000 men. These vessels carried much Javanese artillery. Although defeated, Pati Unus sailed home and beached his warship as a monument of a fight against men he called the bravest in the world, his exploit winning him a few years later the throne of Demak. In a letter to Afonso de Albuquerque, from Cannanore, 22 Feb. 1513, Fernão Pires de Andrade, the Captain of the fleet that routed Pate Unus, says:
Castanheda noted that Pati Unus' junk is built with 7 layers of planking, called lapis in Malay, between each layer was put a coating consisting a mixture of bitumen, lime, and oil. Pati Unus was using it as floating fortress to blockading the area around Malacca.
The Portuguese remarked that such large, unwieldy ships were weaknesses. The Portuguese succeeded in repelling the attack using smaller but more maneuverable ships, using boarding tactics and setting fire to the junks. They did not specify the exact size of Pati Unus' junk. Djoko Nugroho's research from Portuguese sources concludes that it has a length of 4-5 times the Flor do Mar. This would make its size about 144–180 m, with the tonnage between 1600-2000 tons. Other scholars put it as low as 1000 tons, which indicates a length of 70–90 m. Impressed by this kind of ship, Albuquerque hired 60 Javanese carpenters and shipbuilders to from Malacca shipyard and sent them to India, with the hope that these craftsmen will be able to repair Portuguese ships in India. But they never arrived in India, they rebelled and took the Portuguese ship they boarded to Pasai, where they were welcomed extraordinarily. At least 1 jong was sailed to Portugal, to be deployed as coast guard ship at Sacavem under the instruction of king John III.
Giovanni da Empoli said that in the land of Java, a junk is no different in its strength than a castle, because it had three and four boards, one above the other, which cannot be harmed with artillery. They sail with their women, children, and family, and everyone has a room to themselves.
Tome Pires in 1515 wrote that the authorities of Canton made a law that obliged foreign ships to anchor at an island off-shore. He said that the Chinese made this law about banning ships from Canton for fear of the Javanese and Malays, for it was believed that one of their junks would rout 20 Chinese junks. China had more than a thousand junks, but one ship of 400 tons could depopulate Canton, and this depopulation would bring great loss to China. The Chinese feared that the city would be taken from them, because Canton was one of China's wealthiest city.
Lopo Homem-Reineis Atlas of 1519 was one of the earliest European map which depict jong. The ships were three to seven masted, with equally sharp end, and steered using double quarter rudders. However, there are inaccuracies in the depiction. The ships were depicted with high forecastle akin to a carrack. The sail is drawn like a square sail, although the artist may have tried to depict the canted rectangular sail. The arrow-like structure in the bow may have been an attempt to depict barunastra.
In 1574, queen Kalinyamat of Jepara Sultanate attacked the Portuguese Malacca with 300 vessels under the command of Ki Demat, which included 80 jong of 400 tons burthen and 220 kelulus, although with very little artillery and firearms. As the supplies were dwindling and the air corrupted by disease, Tristão Vaz da Veiga decided to arm a small fleet of a galley and four half-galleys and about 100 soldiers and head out to the River of Malaios, in the middle of the night. Once there, the Portuguese fleet entered the river undetected by the Javanese crews, and resorting to hand-thrown fire bombs set fire to about 30 junks and other crafts, catching the enemy fleet entirely by surprise, and capturing ample supplies amidst the panicking Javanese. After 3 month siege, the Javanese retreated.
François Pyrard of Raval mentioned about a wreck of a Sundanese junk in Guradu, south Malé Atoll, Maldives. The ship was carrying all kind of spices and other merchandise from China and Sunda. On board was about 500 men, women, and children, and only 100 was saved during its sinking. The king of Maldives asserted that it was the richest ship conceivable. Pyrard thought it was the largest ship he has ever seen, with the mast being taller and thicker than those of Portuguese carracks, and the top deck was much larger than those of Portugal. The Sundanese queen's parents were the owner of the junk, both were drowned in the sinking. The queen, which was only a child during the sinking, survived.

Decline

Anthony Reid argues that the failure of jong in battles against smaller and more agile Western ships may convince the Javanese shipbuilders that the large but less agile jong faced too much risk against the European style of naval battle, so the ships they built later were smaller and faster. Since the mid-16th century the maritime forces of the archipelago began to use new types of agile naval vessels that could be equipped with larger cannons: In various attacks on Portuguese Malacca after the defeat of Pati Unus, they no longer used jong, but used lancaran, ghurab and ghali. The jongs that plied the archipelago post-1600s are only averaged at 100 tons burthen, but there are still several of them ranging from 200 to 300 lasts burthen in early 1700s.
Production of djongs ended in the 1700s, perhaps because of the decision of Amangkurat I of Mataram Sultanate to destroy ships on coastal cities and close ports to prevent them from rebelling, in 1655. The disappearance of Muria strait denied the shipbuilders around Rembang-Demak access to open water. By 1677, the Batavia Daghregister reported that Mataram is lacking vessels on their own even for necessary use, and very ignorant about sea. When the VOC gained a foothold in Java, they prohibited the locals from building vessels more than 50 tons in tonnage and assigned European supervisors to shipyards. After 1700s, the role of jong has been replaced by European type of ships, namely the bark and brigantine, built at local shipyards of Rembang and Juwana, such ships may reach 400-600 tons burthen, with the average of 92 lasts.

Replica